Something strange with treasure tables

[dcollins]

The treasure table for this encounter says a lot less loot than the goldcoins table says for the NPCs.... Not that it's really a problem to balance for me... but did I do something wrong in these considerations?

Just wanted to point out that this is explicitly noted in the 3.0 rules:

The gear that NPCs carry serves as the bulk of their treasure... an NPC's gear is already worth about three times the average value of a treasure of his or her level. Defeating NPC foes brings about great reward for treasure-seekers, but since the gear is mostly magic that the NPC can use against the characters (some of which is one-use), it all evens out.

(3.0 DMG p. 171, "NPCs with Treasure")

There may be a chink in that argument, but at least it's duly noted. The added factor is that magic items can only be sold for half value (3.0 PHB p. 146), so in some sense the magic treasure value is only x1.5 standard.

 

[Li Shenron]

Darklone, are you using the small table with CR -> treasure amount or the random generation treasure table? I don't want to calculate the average result, but at first it looks like the random table would give less on average I have to say I never ever used treasures/magic items random tables, since I usually plan carefully what I want my PCs to find, and that's not bulky pieces of pop-art and neither magic gear they'll just wish to sell as soon as possible.

 

[Darklone]

Same for me, I never really used those tables. I prefer to have magic items with a big of nonrandomness and story... so on average my NPCs carry lots less equipment than given by any table.

Since I have a weak spot for nice signature stuff for the players, low level players might easily have much too much money for their level in my games... but it's usually just one big bad item with several nice functions.